Summer Update

We have been having so much fun, I can’t believe that this is my first blog post of June, time is racing by! Our big news is we had some work done on our house and they are finished! I really think you need to see the before and after side by side (to get a better look open this picture up full sized). And this isn’t really the after, it’s the construction is finished, but we still need to paint, hang some trellis, put the new(old) storm door on, and generally cute it up a bit more.
The front looks great, but that’s not the best part:Yep, that’s a brand new gate and a brand new privacy fence. I have wanted a fence since we moved in and now I have it! We are outside all of the time now, we have plans for a garden and a fire pit and who knows what else (we have a really large back yard). Today we’ve had a bike wash, later we’re going to go for a ride and work in the front yard some more. How is you summer going? It is speeding by like ours?

Trying Not to Traumatize the New Neighbors

Since moving in to our new house I have been slowly adding window treatments to every room based on privacy.  These are not all permanent solutions, but they do keep people from seeing straight through our house.  The curtains upstairs are stapled up!   The only bare windows still left are in the kitchen.

Our kitchen is at the back of our house and really the only people who could see in would be our neighbors or the random peeping tom.  However, occasionally I find myself naked in the kitchen and wondering if maybe my neighbors may have noticed.  They just moved in a couple of weeks ago and I really don’t want to traumatize them before we get the chance to properly meet them, so we definitely need some sort of curtains!

Yesterday while folding more fabric (I finished off another tote, yay!)  I found my stash of vintage aprons and thought that they would look really cute as kitchen curtains. 

I made a special trip to Hobby Lobby and bought some mini cloths pins and strung them onto twine.  I used clear push pins to tie the twine up.  I starched and ironed the aprons and hung them up.  I think I can almost hear the neighbors sigh of relief, “Look honey, we don’t have to see our neighbors naked anymore, they got curtains!” 

I can easily switch out the aprons if I get tired of these or get new ones for my collection.  I could also add another line to the top of the windows, but I like the sun shining in.  BTW I have a lot more aprons, these were just the most brightly colored ones and the ones with the most details, I love the cross stitched gingham ones!  Does anyone else have a good idea on how to display aprons, I have a lot of full aprons that I would love to have out.

Nothing Crafty to Report

Hi everyone, just thought I would take a moment and let everyone know that I have nothing crafty to report.  This week our new house is being weatherized (Yay!), but it is absolute chaos here and there is no crafting taking place.  Our new home will be toasty warm this winter, but I have no projects to share.  This is my living room and dining room:You’ll notice that everything is pulled out from the walls and heaped up everywhere.  That table on the bottom right, (there’s a table under that basket) is where I normally do my crafting.

They have drilled holes in all the outer walls and blown in insulation made from recycled newspapers.

The holes are being patched and I will be retouching the paint in Little Miss’s room, I’m glad I haven’t gotten around to doing more painting.

They’ll be back again tomorrow fixing windows, putting in a new front door and adding some more insulation to our basement.  I’m hoping to have the house back to somewhat normal by next Monday.

The only semi-crafty thing I can report is that my Instant Cemetery was included in another Storque article, Yay again!!!

I’ll be back next week and back to being crafty and I’ll be securely insulated!!! 

What I Do with My Free Time

As most of you know I love Halloween and the season has officially started, there are decorations and crafts in the store.  Every year I see some really great stuff, but it’s the same stuff everyone has.  This year I wanted to get something different, something crafty.

Last year craftster started a 13 days of Halloween swap (similar to the 12 days of Christmas), but because we were moving there was no way I could join.  This year I’m in, I missed the swap deadline altogether, but was able to pick up an angel spot and I am super excited!!!  You can read all the swap-y details here.

I have warned my partner that I will be posting projects to this blog, so if she wants to be surprised no peeking.  I have my days planned out and I am working on two projects (more on those later this week).  I am hoping to make duplicates of some of my projects, so I can keep one for myself, but we will see how that goes.

I also have been busy with new house stuff.  Our neighbors are going to tear down this adorable shed.They have said we could have it if we can move it.  I think we are going to have to rent some heavy duty equipment to pull this off, but I really like this shed, doesn’t it look like a chicken coup!  A coat of paint and a tin roof would make it super cute and maybe some window flower boxes.

I have been anxiously awaiting the announcement of the Crafty Chica Bag Contest winner.  I feel like I’m stalking Kathy on twitter hoping that any day they’ll say who won.  She tweeted yesterday that they were going to decide, but they haven’t announced anything yet!

And my son is going to start kindergarten this year, so we have been getting physicals and shots, it’s been fun!

If you have any Halloween suggestions or links please let me know and if you know the best way to move a shed I’d love to hear from you.

What I did this Weekend

Last week we had an appointment with the Lincoln Action group, they provide weatherization and during the inspection we discovered black mold in one of our basement walls. Well you know that has to be fixed. Luckily in was contained in a small wall, so this weekend we took the wall down. I cordoned off the area with plastic put on my mask and started ripping it down. My Father was here to help and Marma(my Mother) kept the kids busy. Most of the mold was growing on the back of the drywall and there is no way to get it off, so out it went! The mold was caused by moisture in the wall from an old leak that had already been repaired. I sprayed the interior of the wall down with a mold killing spray, we have a dehumidifier running full blast, and in a few weeks when we’re sure the mold is dead and everything is nice and dry we’ll put the wall back up. We will be replacing one of the studs in the bathroom wall, installing an access door for the plumbing, and putting recessed shelving into the family room wall. And that swimming pool blue paint will get painted over too!

I have also been working on my Crafty Chica bag. I have finished the appliqués. Kelly (refibered) gave me a mini lesson on reverse appliqué at our Lincoln Handmade Team meeting last week. I have started the painting. I’m using regular acrylic craft paint mixed with textile medium, it’s taking a lot of coats to get good coverage, but it worth it.This is the back, I’m going to have to get a shot of these outside so the glitter vinyl is more noticeable! Here is the front, I’ve finished the white areas and am building up the yellow and red areas.

Once the painting is finished I will be embellishing this further with dimensional paint, glitter paint, rhinestones and maybe some sequins. I also have something super special planned for the inside, so check back. The contest has been extended to the 24th., so there is still time for you to give it a shot! (See the Flickr gallery here.)

I am Such a Copycat!

My friend Christy(christynelson dot net) made a stationery box for a friends' wedding and hey, I’m going to a wedding this weekend, so I copied her ‘cause she’s awesome!

Here it is all closed up and looking like a super cute little gift.When you open it up the is a large pocket in the back and two smaller pockets in the front.  There is also a pocket for stamps and a lined notebook.  I have made a few cards, but I still need to make some tags for the pocket on the left and add a pen holder under the little notebook.  Christy used these instructions and I also found this youtube video that demos this project (this is a link for part one, there is also a part two).

I really like that I could use the colors the bride chose for her wedding and I think she is going to like it because she also enjoys scrapbooking.  She’ll probably laugh at my cards, turns out I’m not the best card maker.  My excuse is that I didn’t have enough embellishments, so everything seems kind of plain.

I spent this weekend fixing up the exterior of our house a bit, just a bit of tidying and some touch up painting.

On the left side are the pictures that I took before the old tenant moved out and on the right are how it looks now.  My favorite part is that the two satellite dishes are gone, and all the junk too!

Instant Cemetery Can Design

Today I worked on the master copy for my instant cemetery can wrappers. Last year I just mod podged mini tombstones onto a paint can that I painted black, this year I want something fancier. I got my watercolors and went to work creating a molted background and while I was at it I made a new label for the lid too, ransom note style.I’ll have to tweak them a little when I print them, but I really like how they came out. I’ll also be including a paint can key this year, to make opening the can easier, I really pound those lids on ;-)!

My other achievement was installing a new shower head, the old one was like having someone spit on you, terrible pressure, the new one is a water saver and it really amps up the pressure, I can’t wait to take a shower!

Graffiti

Our new house was formerly a rental house and so there have been a lot of fun discoveries made since we closed. For example, a large hole in the kitchen wall was patched with packing tape and then painted, there are miles and miles of wires (cable and phone) that go nowhere, the toilet has been installed at an odd angle, but my personal favorite is the graffiti.

This particular drawing is in my bathroom behind the door, a delightfully primitive large breasted woman done in black sharpie marker. The reason I mention this is that I have discovered a way to lessen the appearance of sharpie marker, so I don’t have to apply 10 coats of primer and I thought I should share. The secret is rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball.

Here is the after shot, now I know that you can still see the boobies, but they are definitely less noticeable. Once the wall dries and the ring around the edge fades it will be a lot better. I think that on a semi gloss paint the marker would have been completely removed. I’m not exactly sure what kind of paint this is, it is matte and when I wash the walls (and yes they really need to be washed!!!) it comes off, not completely, but noticeably. The entire interior is painted with this stuff and every room needs to be primed (with kilz) and painted, walls and ceilings. We are going to start painting soon, but the bathroom will be one of the last rooms we do (we would really like to redo the entire bathroom (or as I put it: rip out everything and start over)).

Oh, and the other thing I learned last week: foaming oven cleaner is great for removing cat urine from cement floors, we got a little crazy and just started trying different cleaning products.

And after all of this I am still really excited that we bought this house and I can’t wait to get everything done.